HikeArizona.COM

The endless chatter of weather.

19" is a healthy snowfall. Have fun ruining the smooth, unbroken surface!

El Soleado seems to have blinded the little boy child. Possible 80s next week is not my preferred choice for mid-February.

Possible 80s next week IS my preferred choice for mid-February!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cheaper than going back to Costa Rica! It's been cold down here on the river.

If I have snow this week, and 80 next week, that is perfect and my preferred! Bring it on!

It's -7 in Flag right now and -11 at the Grand Canyon. So, you know, balmy. That dry heat we hear so much about.

The air is so thin up there that temperature is an abstract concept.

Up to 21 degrees at lunch hour. Better than the 19 yesterday!

I swear the webcam pointed at the Peaks is slowly drifting to the right.

@Patrick L
Well, it's getting older.

Oh yeah, near 80 for Monday!

Solar Noon has the sun angle above 40 degrees, at Phoenix's latitude using 33.45 degrees north, and we're warming up. I hesitate to declare winter to be over, but we haven't got many more weeks of it!

Well, there is that El Nino, and who knows how that might affect the next 8 weeks?

This is how I feel waiting for Mid-June/July right now:



I want the green rolling tundra back, so bad right now...

Though it was California centric, at least one forecaster (Dmatt out of the eastern Sierra) suggested that we may be looking at 2 to 3 weeks of this warm high pressure before any real pattern change occurs.

When does the El Niño stuff start happening? I'm holding out hope for March.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/n ... 201601.gif

Evaluations begin 4/1/16

El Niñety!

If it happens in the next week at PHX it would be the earliest el 90 ever! (Record is 2/24/86)

Early hints point toward a pattern shift toward the end of next week. Finally.

Well, I am certainly not complaining as I absolutely love this weather, but with the last week of 80s, and the forecast coming week of 80s, I have completely lost interest in going to the Rim to snowshoe. Just as well, as I had thought I would wait for a new storm and then go, but by March I usually don't even want to think of snow or winter, anymore. Phoenix NWS really isn't making the trough for late next week to be much more than clouds down here, with all real precipitation being to the north.

Winter isn't actually over, though, and while I hope this weather continues for now, we could have some serious storms in March, and April. Maybe we will get lucky and we'll have similar weather to last year? I just hope it stay mild for some time, as I planted sweet corn and sunflowers yesterday, and I would like for them to come up and thrive.

Allergies: OK last year from December through March and into April my allergies were really bad. I told myself that if this year began the same, I would seek medical attention. I visited an allergy doctor in January this year. We talked about last year and she told me last year was a "super massive pollen event". Warm wet weather setup a pollen explosion where many plants and trees produced more and sustained pollen than usual. On the day of my visit I had pretty bad symptoms, usual stuffy, runny, itchy, etc... She wanted to do a skin test but said I have to go a week without antihistamines or it would skew the test. She prescribed an antibiotic and a sinus rinse thingy, and said come back in a week. I didn't see how the antibiotic was going to help seasonal allergies? Well, it did as of the next day. The Doc told me I had an almost sinus infection. My symptoms were severe but were there some days and some days not. She said the sinus build up was causing the sneezing, stuffy, runny, itchy, etc... I have not sneezed one time in almost three weeks now and I have not taken any antihistamines (no actifed, benadryl, zyrtec, or even sudafed). I was skin tested and it revealed the usual expected issues cat, grasses, dust, etc... but also the worst was juniper and cedar. This is likely the cause of my problems she said as juniper and cedar are producing pollen in the winter months. She has now prescribed Nasonex spray and I continue to use the sinus wash daily (Neil Meds). Sneeze free and loving life again. If your allergies come and go without any rhyme or reason, you may want to check to see if you have an "almost sinus infection"... I would recommend the sinus wash for sure, it's kind of gross at first, but 10 minutes later you feel fantastic.

Don't get me started on allergies and sinus infections. I use a sinus rinse as well and found it to work on keeping me breathing. Tried an experiment and went fairly paleo for a month. Stopped drinking beer and milk and stuck with bourbon as my liquor of choice. So far this winter it's been smooth sailing and only a few days of really bad allergies. Only real issue I had was the day after I used the fire pit in my back yard.